Systemic Team Coaching Flashcards
7 cards from real CST practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Systemic Team Coaching flashcards as text
In systemic team coaching, what does the term 'system' primarily refer to?
Answer: The interconnected relationships, patterns, and dynamics within and around the team
A system in team coaching refers to the web of interdependencies, relationships, and emergent patterns that shape team behavior beyond any single individual.
A Scrum Trainer notices that a team always defers to the most senior developer when making technical decisions, even during retrospectives. This is best described as:
Answer: A systemic pattern that may be suppressing collective intelligence
Repeated deference to one individual is a systemic pattern — a recurring dynamic that constrains the team's ability to self-organize and tap distributed knowledge.
Which coaching stance involves the coach sharing an observation about the team's dynamic without interpreting or judging it?
Answer: Mirroring
Mirroring is reflecting what the coach observes — behavior, language, or energy — back to the team without adding evaluation, allowing the team to make its own meaning.
A team's velocity has been consistent for six sprints but stakeholders are unsatisfied with outcomes. A systemic team coach would most likely explore:
Answer: Whether the team's output is aligned with what the broader system actually needs
Systemic coaching looks beyond internal team metrics to whether the team's work creates value within the larger organizational system.
The concept of 'emergence' in systems thinking is most relevant to team coaching because:
Answer: Team properties and behaviors arise from interactions, not just from individual members' skills
Emergence means that team-level behavior (culture, trust, performance) arises from the pattern of interactions rather than being predictable from individual attributes alone.
During a team coaching engagement, the coach identifies that the team's poor retrospective outcomes are caused by tension with a stakeholder outside the team. The systemic approach would be to:
Answer: Help the team understand and address the cross-boundary dynamic affecting their system
Systemic team coaching addresses both within-team dynamics and the team's boundary with the broader organization, since external relationships shape internal behavior.
Which of the following best describes a 'homeostatic pull' in the context of team coaching?
Answer: The tendency of a system to resist change and return to its familiar state
Homeostasis is the system's natural self-stabilizing force — teams often unconsciously resist change to maintain existing patterns even when those patterns are dysfunctional.